


Spring Green

by HenryMercury



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: (to do with the war rather than body image), Body Positivity, Fluff, Food Issues, Hogwarts Eighth Year, M/M, Recovery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-13
Updated: 2018-02-13
Packaged: 2019-03-17 16:31:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,916
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13662879
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HenryMercury/pseuds/HenryMercury
Summary: Neville's peacetime body blooms late.





	Spring Green

Neville's aware of how people look at him once the war's over. From more or less the minute Voldemort died, Witch Weekly has chased after him relentlessly for cover shoots and comments on his nominations for their weird _Most Handsome_ and _Most Charming_ awards. Neville doesn't take any of it too personally; he knows they're only interested because of all the fighting that he had to do last year, not the rest of him.

Neville's well aware, when he finds himself back in the dorms at Hogwarts, of the way his robes hang off the bones in his shoulders and hips, the way his cheeks hollow and his ribs show when his arms are raised; the fighting muscles that are visible right under the skin. He inspects his body in the bathroom mirror after the other Gryffindor eighth year boys have gone to bed and sees the body of someone who's still at war.

There's an eighth year table in the Great Hall, up near the staff table, and McGonagall's firm about them all sitting there together. They're supposed to be an example, or something. Neville doesn't skip the meals because he likes the feeling of being surrounded, enveloped by the hum of conversation in this space that, a year ago, was so fearfully quiet and cold. He doesn't eat much, though. He feels sick after a few mouthfuls, most of the time. It'd made perfect sense that it was difficult to adjust to starving a lot of the time—an easy punishment for the Carrows to inflict in addition to their other more hands-on techniques. What Neville didn't anticipate was how hard it is to get used to food again.

It's just another hangover from the war, he supposes. Just like harmless green lights and screams of laughter and shadows that turn out only to be first-years sneaking around the grounds, regular hearty meals are hard to process now.

"Want the last croissant?" asks Blaise.

Neville shakes his head, but Blaise breaks an arm off the pastry and puts it on his plate regardless. Neville knows he _should_ want it—croissants are one of his favourites—but it's so buttery he can feel a faint nausea churning in the bottom of his throat at the thought.

Friendship with Blaise Zabini has been another unexpected side effect of Neville's post-war world. One day the tall, dark Slytherin had taken a seat next to Neville at lunch and asked in that smooth, deep voice of his whether Neville would be so kind as to help him out with Herbology. It was different to the attention he got from a lot of others; it didn't feel impersonal or superficial like the interest of the magazines, or the people who just wanted to pretend they'd always been mates with the guy who was famous now. Blaise had actually figured out what mattered to Neville. So Neville had said yes.

Neville nibbles at the edge of the croissant, but leaves the rest. He catches Blaise giving him a concerned look as he gets up to leave, but he doesn't comment. Neville's glad; he doesn't know how exactly he'd explain himself.

҉

Blaise's gardening gloves have broken, and none of Neville's fit his large hands comfortably. He refuses to wear the spare ones Professor Sprout keeps for students to borrow, which Neville thinks is partly pureblood prissiness but mostly a very valid aversion to the communal gloves' inlay of sweat and dirt too stubborn for cleaning charms to remove without ruining the fabric.

It only makes sense, then, that on the next Hogsmeade weekend Blaise asks Neville to accompany him to help him find some new ones. The supplies available at Hogsmeade aren't on par with what's for sale in Diagon Alley, but Neville knows a few places that might have something good enough to get Blaise through the term. They've been gardening rather a lot; Blaise is very committed to getting Os on all his NEWTs, and he insists that Herbology practicals are his weak point.

Neville doesn't think twice about their planned excursion until Pansy Parkinson grabs him in the corridor, digging her pointed nails into his arm like she's holding a knife to his throat, and informs him that if he hurts her friend she'll have his bollocks pickled and sold for use in illicit potions.

"Hurt him?" he asks, confused. "How would I hurt him?"

The nails press deeper, sliding the skin of Neville's forearm uncomfortably against the bone beneath.

"I don't appreciate you making me say these words," she hisses. "But don't break his bloody heart, alright?"

"What?" Neville freezes, wide-eyed.

"Are you _kidding_ me?" Parkinson lets him go and pushes a hand through her hair in frustration. Somehow, the fringe falls back down over her forehead with barely a strand of hair looking ruffled. "Your little Hogsmeade date, you daft Gryffindor! Merlin, it's a good thing I've explained it to you; subtlety is obviously lost on your lot. Just— take him for a cup of tea or something after you do your geeky-gardener-themed shopping spree. He likes you. And it's obvious you like him too."

"I— okay," Neville agrees shakily. He rubs the red crescent moons Parkinson left on his arm and thinks all day about what she's said to him, stomach fizzing with both anxiety and excitement.

҉

It gets easier, feeling normal. Somewhere along the line Neville realises he's going for a different sort of normality now, rather than trying to return to how he was before the war, and this has proven to be much more attainable.

Dating Blaise has been a bizarre and lovely, awfully public and wonderfully private affair. There are still magazine spreads whenever they're photographed out and about at Hogsmeade, with commentary on their respective outfits, hairstyles and physiques. Blaise is handsome on a different scale to Neville—it's not his ability to behead snakes that the media loves him for, but the way he wears those expensive snakeskin loafers, or that fine green scarf coiled around his neck. It's noticeable, the different ways they're written about. Neville's never been a vain person, so he doesn't let it bother him.

Blaise has figured out which foods Neville has the easiest time with by now, and routinely slides bits and pieces onto his plate. Carrots are good, as are most other fresh, crisp vegetables. Neville's always liked vegetables, so this is a relief. His usual dinner nowadays consists of unbuttered sourdough bread dipped in soup. On good days he'll go as far as pancakes with lemon juice and sugar.

He's been sleeping better and studying better now that he's unlocked his body and can actually fend off the acidic writhing of hunger in his belly. Bit by bit he feels himself regrowing, like a tree gone stark and skeletal over winter finally budding for the spring.

҉

Neville's aware of how people look at him when his cheeks grow rounded again; when the soft curve of his stomach is visible behind the curtain of his robes; when he doesn't need to tighten his belt so much just to keep his trousers in place. He sees the way that people look at the stretch marks on his inner arms when the weather gets warmer (there are some new ones, but most of them old and silvery). They look with slight disgust as if they've only just realised what the stripes are. Maybe when they weren't pulled taut over as much soft flesh, people assumed they were war wounds. He tries not to think about how many of the people he knows—the people he _likes_ —seem subconsciously to think it's better for a person to be scarred by violence than by the growth of their own body.

When Blaise kisses him, he loops his arms around Neville's waist. There's a lot more to hold on to now that the end of the year is approaching than there was when they first started dating. Blaise hasn't _said_ that he minds, but he hasn't slipped any extra pastries onto Neville's plate in a while.

Neville's a firm believer in just confronting issues before they can be allowed to fester, so he asks Blaise about it one day while they're walking around the grounds, enjoying the sunlight during a shared morning off classes.

"Does it bother you," he asks, "that I'm not a thin bloke like Harry or Draco—or muscular like you are? That I'm chubby instead?"

Blaise frowns. "You're not—"

"I am," Neville cuts him off. "And it's okay. It's not an insult, so you don't have to talk me out of saying it."

"You're right," Blaise nods. "I like you," he adds, earnestly. "I like all of this," Blaise's hands run from Neville's shoulders down his arms. "And this," his palms smooth over Neville's hips, over the little dip made by the waistband of his pants in the softness there. "This is what your body looks like when you're happy, and I love to see you happy. Have I said something to make you worry?"

Neville leans away from the kiss Blaise goes to place on his neck. It's true that Blaise has only ever seemed to enjoy Neville's body. He's been just as physically affectionate since the papers gave up on Neville's previously alleged handsomeness and even some of his housemates started dropping hints about how important it was to keep healthy despite the stress of NEWTs.

It feels a bit silly, saying, "you never put food on my plate anymore," in light of all that, but Neville does it anyway, now that they're having this conversation.

"Ah, I see. I suppose you want to know why, then?"

"I'm curious," Neville admits.

"It's simple," says Blaise, leaning close but not touching Neville again until he slips a hand around Blaise's waist to show it's alright. "You put enough on your own plate these days. You eat as much as you need to. You didn't used to."

Neville laughs. "Oh. Yeah, I guess so. Sorry to get all suspicious."

"It's nothing," Blaise smiles that enticing, pearly smile—and Neville finally understands. He understands that while onlookers have been preoccupied with his ability to match Blaise's magazine-ready sort of beauty, Blaise himself isn't nearly so concerned with that. He never was; hadn't asked to spend time with Neville in the greenhouses because he looked good in muddy gardening clothes (though he did). He'd listened intently as Neville rambled about the really very individual personalities of Venomous Tentaculas, just interested in what made Neville tick. What made Neville _Neville_.

He looks at himself in the bathroom mirrors once his dormmates are done showering. His ribs and muscles are wrapped in a layer of comfort now that it isn't taking everything he's got just to stay alive. Neville's physique is made out of his favourite croissants and fresh vegetables; the soups he's continued eating most nights even though he can devour a steak now without any trouble; the sweets Blaise buys him from Honeydukes, and the cherry wine they managed to talk the owner of the Hogsmeade liquor shop into selling them. There are knotted red and silver scars here and there, where people have tried to carve parts out of him and sometimes succeeded—but around those he has collected the marks of growth. They fork out like roots across every rolling hillside of Neville's body—a peacetime body that feels full again, with more than the war ever managed to take.


End file.
